


Fear and Hope (In Equal Measure)

by sequence_fairy



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, HP AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 18:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17792210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: Rukia is Ichigo's boggart.





	Fear and Hope (In Equal Measure)

**Author's Note:**

> I've missed these two so much.

Showing a group of thirteen year olds how to defeat a boggart is a tried and true method of becoming the best Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. There’s something about getting everyone up and out of their desks to fight their fears that brings a class together. Ichigo looks forward to this lesson each year.  

The appointed day arrives, and with it, the boggart collected from one of the attic storerooms. Chad has helpfully left it in a trunk on the floor in the middle of Ichigo’s classroom. His class files in, and Ichigo is assailed, like usual, by how young they all look. He thinks about being thirteen himself, and wonders if he ever looked so young –and decides that having to covertly keep your best friend from being assassinated probably adds years and years to your actual age. He shakes off the morbid thoughts and plasters on a welcoming smile.

The students settle into their desks and Ichigo looks around the classroom. The trunk judders and shakes, scraping across the floor.

“Who has a guess for what might be in this trunk?” Ichigo asks, watching as the students peer at it. From the back of the class, a hand lifts tentatively.

“Mr. Low?”

“A boggart sir?”

“Excellent deduction,” Ichigo says, and flicks a glance down at the trunk. “Ten points to Gryffindor. What is a boggart?”

There’s a tittering noise to his left and Ichigo turns. “Do you have an answer for us Ms. Chande?” he asks, and the girl in question sits up tall in her seat.

“A boggart is a shapeshifter. They live in dark spaces and take on the form of the worst fear of the person who sees them.”

“Thank you Ms. Chande,” Ichigo says, “ten more points to Gryffindor.” Ichigo flicks his wand, unlocking but not opening the trunk. “Alright, wands out everyone, we’ll practice the countercurse before I let you try it on the boggart. After me then:  _Riddikulus_!”

“ _Riddikulus!_ ” The class shouts as one, swishing their wands in an approximation of Ichigo’s own movement.

“Good job everyone,” Ichigo praises. “Now, one more thing – what really finishes a boggart is laughter. The trick is to make whatever the boggart turns into, into something funny. For example – if you were scared of spiders, how silly would a spider look on roller skates?”

The smattering of laughter in response makes Ichigo smile despite himself. “Hold the image of your fear turned funny in your mind as you say the spell,” Ichigo instructs. “Get in line behind Ms Chande, please.”

Ichigo kicks open the trunk and steps back.

The first few students through are confident in their spellwork and the boggart shapeshifts, punctuated by a  _crack_  each time. By the end of the line of students, the boggart is starting to flag and Ichigo steps forward to herd it back into the trunk, so they can put it back upstairs to await the next class of third years.

As he does, the amorphous blob shifts with a  _crack_  and there’s Rukia, lying on the classroom floor, skin white as snow, dark hair splayed out around her head, and her violet eyes wide but dimmed by death. Her lips are blue. Ichigo’s chest seizes, he can’t move, he can’t  _breathe_.

Dimly, he hears the class gasping behind him; the mutterings of ‘that’s professor Kuchiki’ and ‘why’s she his worst fear?’ and ‘professor Kurosaki?’ Ichigo still can’t breathe. His heart climbs into his throat. He can’t get the spell out, can’t get the words out of his mouth, and can’t make his arm lift to move his wand. There’s a roaring in his ears and the world tilts crazily on its axis, black spots dancing across his vision.

This is not a vision of a worst fear come to life, this is a memory of a worst fear happening.

He remembers, vividly, the moment she fell - Quidditch practice during the height of the last uprising;  Dementors marching onto the field. He remembers the way she’d looked down, and then back at him and the way her eyes had gone dark, before they’d rolled up and back.  He remembers the way her body went limp, the way she slid off her broom, the way she landed, in a heap, so far below him on the ground. He remembers the swooping dive, the sizzle-snap of a powerful stunning spell and finally, his feet on the ground.

Ichigo remembers the shouting and the acrid tang of magic in the air and the creeping chill of the Dementors, but mostly, he remembers Rukia, her face smooth and her eyes closed; her body, limp in his arms.

There is no air, Ichigo’s lungs burn.  

_CRACK!_

“Professor Kurosaki!” It’s Rukia’s voice, and it cuts through the fog in his brain and drags him back into the present. The boggart is eliminated; banished into a thin stream of smoke by Rukia’s bark of laughter.

“ _Rukia_.” Ichigo’s voice is a croak. He looks around, sees the wide eyes of his students, Rukia’s impassive face and bolts.

Ichigo runs until his lungs burn for a reason other than panic.

When he finally slows, robes swirling around his ankles, he finds himself at the edge of the Quidditch pitch.  He leans over, hands on his knees, chest heaving. He breathes, focusing on quelling the dread that is still ratcheting his heartbeat up and up and up.

A hand settles between his shoulder blades and Ichigo flinches. He straightens and turns. It’s Rukia.

“Tell me what happened?”

“It was you,” Ichigo says.

“Your boggart is  _me_? That’s  _riddikulus,_  Ichigo.”

“Not funny Rukia,” Ichigo snaps, turning away. “You don’t remember, so it’s not like I can blame you – but I watched you fall.” Ichigo inhales raggedly, breath searing in his chest. The panic blooms again in his chest.

Rukia places her hand on his arm. She looks up at him, dark eyes bright with life and shining with something else - something neither of them have named. “Ichigo,” she says, and she tightens her grip on his arm. The welling terror in the space between Ichigo’s ribs ebbs as he focuses on the pressure of Rukia’s fingers around his forearm. Her hands are small, but Ichigo knows the strength of them and he swears he feels it bleeding into him along with her body heat.

“I almost lost you,” Ichigo says, to his feet, unable to look at her and confess at the same time. “I thought–I thought I had.” He looks up, catches her gaze, and hears Rukia’s quick inhale at whatever she sees in his eyes. “You were–you were so still.”

“It was cold,” Rukia says, voice low. She hesitates before speaking again, her hand on his arm squeezes. “So cold,” she murmurs. Ichigo covers her hand with his own. The back of her hand is chilled. “I could hear–” Rukia stops, blinks, changes tack, “you know they say that Harry Potter’s boggart was a Dementor.”

Ichigo grunts. “Yeah, but he couldn’t tell his teacher was werewolf with the moon staring him right in the goddamn face.”

Rukia’s mouth quirks up. Ichigo feels something loosen in his chest. Above them, the sky has turned from burnished gold to deep violet and the dew has started to fall, dampening the hems of their robes and chilling Ichigo’s feet in his canvas shoes. Her hand is still on his arm, he realises, she hasn’t moved it yet, hasn’t shifted to move his hand off hers, and hasn’t stopped looking at him either, soft and fond and a little bit sad.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, because he has no brain-to-mouth filter. Rukia blinks at him, snorts and then shakes her head. This time, her smile is a slow bloom of something that warms the space between Ichigo’s ribs. Behind her, the quidditch stands rise like looming sentries and he can still make out the barest outline of the hoops at the far end.

Maybe, he thinks, looking down at her, he could learn to replace the boggart’s image with her like this, looking up at him, eyes luminous in the gathering dark. For a moment, he wonders what she would do if he reached up, if he took the strand of hair that has fallen across her face and tucked it back behind her ear, what she would do if he leaned down, if he closed the distance between them until there was barely the space for breath. Would she tell him to stop? Would she lift herself up onto her toes and lean into him? Would he feel the compact strength of her, with her bird bones and lean muscle? Would she let him pull her back, hand in hand, to his rooms, and let him spread her out in his bed, all that creamy skin and a flush riding high on her cheeks, voice gone to smoke and ember as she says his name? Would that replace the boggart’s image in his mind?

“Ichigo?” Rukia asks, and Ichigo blinks.

“We should head back,” Ichigo says, hastily and steps away from her. Rukia lets him go. There’s something knowing in her gaze when she falls into step next to him as they make the trek back up to the castle.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come and chat with me about my fic on [tumblr](http://sequencefairy.tumblr.com) or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/warpspeed_chic).


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